How playing and debriefing/reflecting on two escape games influenced students’ perceptions on local climate governance and democracy

Abstract. Climate change presents major challenges for cities and requires local decision-making processes involving diverse stakeholders. At the same time, research shows that secondary students often hold misconceptions about climate-related measures, and that there is sometimes reduced support for democratic principles. Innovative educational approaches are therefore needed to foster students’ knowledge and engagement with local climate policy. Although gamification is considered as a promising strategy in climate education, little is known about how escape games supported by a debriefing/reflection phase can support learning about local climate governance and democratic processes. This study presents two educational escape games addressing local climate policy solutions, stakeholder perspectives, and urban decision-making. A pre- and post-test control group design was implemented with 172 secondary students (aged 14–20) from Germany, Italy, and Spain. All students played one of the games; the experimental group participated in a structured debriefing/reflection phase, while the control group did not. We analysed changes in students’ perceptions of local political stakeholders and their opinions on democratic decision-making at the city level. Results indicate that playing the escape games led to students’ better understanding of stakeholders, of their own role, and of governance processes in the context of addressing climate change-related issues. However, students who engaged in the debriefing demonstrated more differentiated perceptions. Students expressed mostly support for democratic processes; however, after playing without debriefing/reflecting, some students did significantly less support democratic decision-making, whereas students who debriefed/reflected the games did not. The findings underline the crucial role of structured debriefing/reflection in transforming an escape game experience into political and democratic learning.